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Welcome to Goldilocks' book reviews. Recently, I read and reviewed a mystery that I thought was too short; alas, here is one that I think needed to be cut. (Don't despair, I have one in the works for a book that is "just right".) It's not that Shadows of Sin uses filler, as some books do -- pages of endless description. It's just that after a couple of hundred pages, I realized that in large part, what I was reading was a very complex, fast-moving, very busy chase scene. And I don't particularly like chase scenes, so this realization was a disappointment. Jessie Drake, Krich's Los Angeles homicide cop, is called to the scene of a multiple murder; a plastic surgeon, his nurse and his receptionist have been shot dead. At no time did anyone consider for a second that the two women - the nurse or receptionist - were the targets of the shooter. In fact, I don't know that we ever learn anything about the nurse; the receptionist is a single mom and that is sad and then she is gone from the narrative too. The doctor is apparently clearly the target of this awful crime.Ý Dr. Bushnell is married with a wife, daughter and foster son, and it is the foster son's disappearance that is the focus on much of the first 300 pages. It's not inconceivable that Ethan runs because he's a suspect. There is a lot going on in this household and like in any murder, family members are under suspicion. I was, however, a bit surprised that Detective Drake targets the boy immediately, spending little time on other possible suspects (one idiot woman, who is haranguing the doctor because "her nose didn't come out right" is dealt with) or on looking for a motive. For her, it seems, that Ethan ran is enough to make him her lead suspect. It is often a complaint, both in fiction and reality that once police decide on a suspect, they drop all leads. Police certainly have enough experience to know the likely killers, both in fact and fiction, but it still surprised me and seems a bit questionable. Mixed into this mystery is Jessie's family life - her atrocious mother (I'm just so tired of awful, annoying (or worse) mothers in crime fiction), her pregnant sister, her father, who's acting weird, and her growing interest in Ezra, her teacher. Jessie's looking into her Jewish roots (not unlike Rachel Gold in the recent Michael Kahn Trophy Widow) trying to decide if this faith is for her. Judaism, as it often does, comes into discussion in Shadows of Sin in a way that I couldn't completely buy; Ethan's sudden interest in his faith, seemed, well, just that, sudden, and not quite real. He's certainly a very messed up kid, but to suddenly decide he's found the answers in only a few weeks didn't ring true. And the ending of the book, where the battered Jessie, fresh from an arrest, is told that a man has been released from prison - a man who threatened to kill her - was, I thought, an unnecessary building of tension. Maybe it's meant to bring the reader right to the next Jessie Drake, but I thought it messed up the resolution of this book by doing so.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, July 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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